1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a benzoindole-based compound and a dye-sensitized solar cell using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Solar cells utilize almost unlimited and environmentally friendly energy sources unlike other energy sources; and, examples of solar cells include silicon solar cells, dye-sensitized solar cells, and the like.
For silicon solar cells, the manufacturing costs are high, and thus, their practical use is difficult to attain and their cell efficiency is difficult to improve.
On the other hand, dye-sensitized solar cells are manufactured at significantly lower costs as compared to silicon-based solar cells, and thus can replace conventional non-crystalline silicon solar cells. In addition, unlike silicon solar cells, the dye-sensitized solar cells are photo-electro-chemical solar cells that include dye molecules that can produce electron-hole pairs by absorbing visible light rays and a transition metal oxide that transfers the produced electron-hole pairs.
As the dye of dye sensitized solar cells, a ruthenium dye is known. However, the ruthenium dye is prepared at an expensive cost. Therefore, research has been actively conducted to replace the ruthenium dye with an organic dye that is prepared at a much lower cost and that also has excellent photoelectric conversion efficiency.